Goode: "The Performance Was Really Special"

Alex Goode emphasised the importance of constant improvement after Saracens won their second successive European Champions Cup on Saturday in Edinburgh.

The full-back scored Sarries’ third and final try in the final to help Sarries pull away during a dangerous period as Clermont got close as well as making crucial contributions to both Chris Ashton’s opener and George Kruis’ score in the first-half.

Goode explained after the game: “Leading up to my try, it was brilliant attack from the whole team we went from 40-metres out after a kick-return and just went phase after phase.

“We showed that, from one to fifteen, that we can all play, we can all make holes and hit space; we knew that they were a tough side and it took us until the 70th/80th minute for us to break them down properly and as they started to tire we really started to punch holes

“I was the lucky one to just go through the gap but afterwards not too many of us were celebrating as we were all pretty tired by that point.”

Goode played a part in the 2014 defeat to Toulon as well as the final victory in Lyon against Racing 92 and praised the Saracens team ethos, saying: “We’re just focussing as a team on getting better and better every week.

“We’ve got a young squad that’s very hungry to keep getting better and to keep improving and the performance was really, really special and everyone was phenomenal.

“Our attack was brilliant at times and it was a joy to be on the field with the rest of the team.

“The great thing is, we will go back in a couple of days and look at the game and see where we can get better and that’s the strength of the group in that we’re constantly looking to get improve and better.

With victory, Saracens became the fourth team to win back-to-back European Cups while also becoming the first team to go 18 matches unbeaten in the competition.

The 29-year-old also reflected on past experiences providing a learning curve, explaining: “As a group, we’ve had some tough journeys along the way, the two finals we lost were brilliant learning curves for us and I think, as a team we’ve built on that and become stronger.

“Those moments when teams have a purple patch and are on top of you like against Munster in the first half of the semi-final, you have to ride that storm and come back with a punch.

He added: “From the kick-off after their try we talked about what we wanted to do and from that kick-off we got a knock-on and a scrum under the sticks so I think there was a lot of calmness and composure in the group not to panic and just think what we were going to do to fix it.”